<![CDATA[APRIL SURGENT - BLOG]]>Fri, 13 Mar 2026 05:13:25 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Of Sea & Sky]]>Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:30:00 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/of-sea-skyThe catalog for my show, Of Sea & Sky @ Traver Gallery was a major feat in and of itself. It shows the work  and completes the story of my collaboration with NOAA's Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program. 
Click in the image below and check it out! 
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Produced by Traver Gallery : Designed by Zach Hooker
]]><![CDATA[Frigatebird on My Mind]]>Fri, 03 Mar 2017 05:41:57 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/frigatebird-on-my-mind'No bird has a higher ratio of wing surface area compared with body weight' 
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​They would roost on anything they could wrap their tiny feet around.
​Colorful sun-bleached plastic crates were prime real-estate on the treeless oasis. 

Sometimes I feel like a Frigatebird. 

]]><![CDATA[What Does it Look Like in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean?]]>Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:38:18 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/what-does-it-look-like-in-the-middle-of-the-pacific-ocean
Make sure your browser supports 360 video. Click and grab the screen. Enjoy! 
Fellow field-camper Jon Brack made this wicked 360 video of the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program field camp at Pearl & Hermes atoll in the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument this summer. Jon was with us for six weeks at the beginning of the season [we started the end of April] and played an integral role in setting up the Pearl and Hermes camp. Aside from helping set-up camp infrastructure, he also hepled train the three of us who would remain there until mid-August by showing us how to safely navigate the atoll and survey the local Hawaiian monk seal population.
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2016 Pearl and Hermes HMSRP team. 5/31 Jon's last night at camp. The next day NOAA vessel Hi'Ialakai picked Jon up and took him to Midway atoll where he worked for the HMSRP for another month. From Left to Right: Laney White, Sadie Youngstrom, April Surgent, Jon Brack
]]><![CDATA[Drawing A Day : 7/19/16]]>Wed, 14 Dec 2016 23:12:48 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/drawing-a-day-71916
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]]><![CDATA[December 06th, 2016]]>Tue, 06 Dec 2016 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/australian-national-university-school-of-art<![CDATA[ArtMiami]]>Wed, 30 Nov 2016 06:49:45 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/artmiamiRoughly 70% of the world's freshwater is frozen as ice in Antarctica.
Much more than a picture of ice  :  Heller Gallery  :  ArtMiami  :  Nov. 29 - Dec. 4  :  Booth D501
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25.75 x 36.5 x .75 inches installed
]]><![CDATA[2016 USA Fellow]]>Fri, 18 Nov 2016 20:39:30 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/2016-usa-fellowFriends and Colleagues : Your support and belief in my work has afforded me the ability and privilege to follow my dreams, what a rare and incredible gift! It is with tremendous gratitude for all of you that I announce I have been awarded a 2016 USA Fellowship. Thank you.
 - April 
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]]><![CDATA[History Repeats Itself]]>Wed, 09 Nov 2016 18:30:10 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/history-repeats-itselfThough I am a conscious being
I am smaller than a speck of dust; a microbe in the universe.

​Not even that significant.

Yet it is possible that even my tiniest of actions are capable of creating monumental ripple-effect
whether I am aware of or able to reconcile those impacts or not.
 
How do our individual actions create impact and how can we transform negative effects into positive outcomes?
What can we do to learn about the world and life and how can we work together to make constructive change?
 
The more we know, the more we can learn and grow from.
Knowledge is the key to transformation.
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Sunset / Southeast Island / Pearl & Hermes / 2016
]]><![CDATA[Drawing A Day]]>Tue, 18 Oct 2016 23:17:12 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/drawing-a-dayI couldn't find the words to describe it...
Most days ended in the form of a drawing.
Picture7-22-16 - ONLY SOME OF THE THINGS CURRENTLY ON MY DESK
Spent time thinking. 
]]><![CDATA[AOK]]>Tue, 27 Sep 2016 19:46:02 GMThttps://www.aprilsurgent.com/blog/aok
Safety check-ins via satellite e-mail with Honolulu went: Monday, Wednesday + Friday before noon. A simple, ‘AOK’ would have sufficed. But I was a newbie and everything was conjecture. And so the Wednesday AOK of which I was in charge became part prose, part haiku.
PHR WEDS AOK [+ some]
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The low angle of the morning sun absorbs into the marine debris that's scattered along nearly every surface of this tiny island in the middle of the ocean, sparkling all the way down the beach like glitter. Some days it is easy to put on your blinders and step past and over it and others not so much. The most challenging aspect of being here is not the lack of infrastructure, the salt water baths or limited communications but rather trying to process the exorbitant amount of garbage that washes ashore; not to mention what remains in the ocean. Watching the wildlife try to adapt to living with our waste, playing with it, getting entangled in it, is enough to turn ones stomach.
 
Last week I made an onsite installation of the disposable lighters that we've collected. As I was setting up I found a seal entangled in a mess of line and the day before the skeleton of a Laysan Finch stuck in a wad of monofilament. We've picked up nearly 9 bagsters of marine debris around the atoll and cannot see a noticeable difference. With more debris washing ashore with every tide, I see this ecosystem indefinitely smothered with our litter. 

All are well.
 
-April + Team
 
------ Weds Haiku ------
 
Ubiquitously
Sea and sky wrapped around me
Oh! The solace here

All photos taken under NOAA NMFS Permit No. 16632
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